Happy Birthday, KLD!

We love our sweet 8-year-old!!

There Is Need of Only One Thing

"Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."
~ Luke 10:38-42

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, Jan Vermeer c. 1654-1656

For the longest time, this gospel story puzzled me. How could Jesus rebuke Martha for preparing and serving dinner, when her sister lounged around adoring Our Lord? "Mary has chosen the better part?" Really? Was Our Lord planning to provide some loaves and fishes, perhaps, if Martha skipped out on kitchen duty?

I'm learning, of course, that this story is about balance. Work and prayer. Work as prayer. Contemplation in the midst of work or, even, prayer in the midst of chaos--a concept every busy mom grapples with daily.

The thing is to offer all my work and all the chaos to Him. To wholeheartedly love the Lord like Mary while working like Martha. And even to pursue holiness, not in spite of my work, but through my work. As St. Josemaria says, "Your work must become a personal prayer, must become a real conversation with Our Father in heaven" and "He waits for us every day, in the laboratory, in the operating theater, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home, and in all the immense panorama of work."

In John 11:24-27 we see Martha again after the death of her brother Lazarus. She says, "I know that, even now, whatever you ask of God, he will grant you…. Yes, Lord…I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.” Obviously, Martha's love for Jesus is complete, and she is a great disciple of Our Lord.

"Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things." Perhaps Jesus' words to Martha are not so much a rebuke as a consolation. He's not suggesting that she not work; he's suggesting that she not worry. When we're busy on the outside, we can still be at peace on the inside, and always in love with our Lord, who fulfills all the deepest desires of our hearts.

For another beautiful piece of art related to the story of Mary and Martha, and a phenomenal reflection for St. Martha's feast day, check out Fr. Z's commentary from today.

Updated: Here is an AWESOME take on this post, which contradicts my above referral to "balance." Indeed, prayer comes first, and work follows from that. We must have both, but not confuse our priorities. See...I'll never stop contemplating and learning about this amazing story of our Lord!

Butterfly Garden

Water Park Bliss

JPD? JPD?
There he is!

Universal Prayer

Just loving this tonight:

Lord, I believe in you: increase my faith.
I trust in you: strengthen my trust.
I love you: let me love you more and more.
I am sorry for my sins: deepen my sorrow.

I worship you as my first beginning,
I long for you as my last end,
I praise you as my constant helper,
And call on you as my loving protector.

Guide me by your wisdom,
Correct me with your justice,
Comfort me with your mercy,
Protect me with your power.

I offer you, Lord, my thoughts: to be fixed on you;
My words: to have you for their theme;
My actions: to reflect my love for you;
My sufferings: to be endured for your greater glory.

I want to do what you ask of me:
In the way you ask,
For as long as you ask,
Because you ask it.

Lord, enlighten my understanding,
Strengthen my will,
Purify my heart,
and make me holy.

Help me to repent of my past sins
And to resist temptation in the future.
Help me to rise above my human weaknesses
And to grow stronger as a Christian.

Let me love you, my Lord and my God,
And see myself as I really am:
A pilgrim in this world,
A Christian called to respect and love
All whose lives I touch,
Those under my authority,
My friends and my enemies.

Help me to conquer anger with gentleness,
Greed by generosity,
Apathy by fervor.
Help me to forget myself
And reach out toward others.

Make me prudent in planning,
Courageous in taking risks.
Make me patient in suffering, unassuming in prosperity.

Keep me, Lord, attentive at prayer,
Temperate in food and drink,
Diligent in my work,
Firm in my good intentions.

Let my conscience be clear,
My conduct without fault,
My speech blameless,
My life well-ordered.
Put me on guard against my human weaknesses.
Let me cherish your love for me,
Keep your law,
And come at last to your salvation.

Teach me to realize that this world is passing,
That my true future is the happiness of heaven,
That life on earth is short,
And the life to come eternal.

Help me to prepare for death
With a proper fear of judgment,
But a greater trust in your goodness.
Lead me safely through death
To the endless joy of heaven.

Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

~ Pope Clement XI, A.D. 1721

Happy Birthday Grandma!

We love you!

Loving Auntie Lynn!!

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU, Auntie Lynn, for coming up to visit us!




We love you SO much!

Water Ballet

Once again this summer...the one, the only...water ballet show!!






Now our summer is complete!
Loving our water ballerinas!

And meanwhile, in the baby pool...

Good St. Anne

Happy Feast Day, St. Anne!

According to Christian and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne, (also Ann or Anna, from Hebrew Hannah, meaning "favor" or "grace") of David's house and line, was the mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ. According to the apocryphal Gospel of James, Anne and her husband Joachim, after years of childlessness, were visited by an angel who told them that they would conceive a child. Anne promised to dedicate the child to God's service. More information about St. Anne is here and I was inspired by Elizabeth Foss' special devotion to St. Anne here.

This year St. Anne is special to me, too, because I realized that her feast day is on the same day that my own sweet grandmother died--July 26, 2002. It's hard to believe that eight years have already gone by since we lost my Grandmother. I still feel like I could pick up the phone and call her up, or that she's still there, down in Texas, ready to pull out something chocolate for us as we play cards around her kitchen table.

Five days after her death, my family held her funeral on a steamy day down by the Texas bayou. At almost the exact same time, my precious KLD was born miles away in Illinois, sweetly continuing the circle of life.

I pray that dear St. Anne, grandmother of Our Lord, can help to bless my own dear Grandmother and my KLD, who will turn eight on Saturday!

Lookin' Good

Today was a much-needed rainy day around here. Pouring, all day. We did nuthin', all day. I woke up early and snuck out to Mass all by myself (pure bliss of course), then came home thinking about how my back wasn't hurting--significant, since during the last few days it's been threatening to have another full-out explosion.

By the time I changed out of my Mass clothes, my back hurt something fierce. It's an old pregnancy injury--my sacroiliac joint, to be precise. And on a bad day, it makes childbirth look like nuthin'. Today was not quite that bad of a day.

After breakfast, KLD asked me if she could give me a handful of change for some crisp dollar bills. I said sure--but she should put the change into a ziplock bag for me to use in the car for coffee runs and so on. She did and happily traipsed upstairs with her shiny new dollar bills.

Then I decided I needed to run to Walgreen's for one of those menthol patches for my back. On the way there, I decided I needed coffee.

Okay, so picture me: Changed into raggy old yoga pants, an old t-shirt, and Birkenstocks, hobbling out of the rain into McDonald's with a baggie of change, counting out nickels and pennies for a cup of McCafe. When a stylish mom with a couple of toddlers failed to meet my eye at the checkout, I realized that I probably looked totally like a homeless woman! Ha!

I guess I can be thankful that my kids are still just a little too young to be totally embarrassed by me! And that I didn't actually see anyone I know! Or perhaps my pedicure (and the bit of makeup I put on before Mass) gave my true identity away as just a lame, slobby suburban Mommy. :)

Goodbye Old Friend

I'll miss you.




Yes, it's true. Of course, I've quit before--for pregnancies, for Lent--but this time, I MEAN IT. I hope!

This summer I've been drinking a lot of Diet Coke. Since I normally drink a lot of Diet Coke, let me assure you that this summer I've been drinking A. LOT. OF. DIET. COKE. As in, I don't really wanna talk about how much.

And you know what? I feel like crap. I feel like crap so much that I've been to the doctor. My head hurts, I'm exhausted, I'm crabby, my blood pressure is inching up again, my back hurts, blah blah blah...

Lately I've been doing a little experiment to go along with a no-carb diet I'm sorta into these days...I substitute iced coffee, iced tea, or (what a concept) water for my Diet Coke at different times of the day. I do use Splenda if I feel like it, but absolutely no aspartame. And guess what--Diet Coke is making me sick. Typically I'll have a giant iced coffee out the door in the morning, then water until I'm on my way home from the pool, then iced tea. I feel fine with all of that. Then I get home and if I grab a Diet Coke--caffeine or no, it doesn't matter--BAM! Headache and sleepy. I've tried this experiment enough days now, with enough variables, that I'm sure of what's going on.

So yesterday I Googled "Diet Coke is making me sick" and "Aspartame is making me sick." And..yep, it's true; the stuff is totally poisonous. Go ahead and Google it yourself--what are you waiting for, a link? :)

You'll find lots of nasty, serious stuff--including all my symptoms, of course--and apparently aspartame has also been linked to MS and lupus-like symptoms along with a litany of other unpleasant side effects. Diet Coke contains as much as 50aspartame, and the rest of its ingredient list--featuring such delicacies as phosphoric acid and that gross artificial coloring--isn't much better! My favorite thing about aspartame, though, is that it breaks down into formaldehyde. In fact, if you don't keep your soda chilled, it will do so before you even drink the stuff--formaldehyde on the rocks, anyone?

(Of course, the FDA is completely unhelpful on this one, as they're no doubt completely bribed by Monsanto, the company that manufactures aspartame. It's always those eeeevil corporations, darn them! And guess who was the CEO of Searle, the company that originally invented aspartame before being acquired by Monsanto...Donald Rumsfeld, of course! It always comes back to the eeeevil Republicans, I tell you!)

Ahem. So anyway, today was my Day 1 without Diet Coke. I'm far from alone in this addiction--while you're Googling, check out "Diet Coke Addiction." You'll find posts like "Day 347 without Diet Coke." (I promise I won't be posting about Diet Coke for that long!) I do believe this is a real, serious thing, and that someday my kids will view my soda habit the way I view my parents' former nicotine addiction. So please pray for me; I do need to be around for my kids and, I'm hoping, grandchildren. And no--I don't think the formaldehyde will be much help in preserving me for them.

And you know what? I feel much better today already!

Solving World Hunger

"If the best current knowledge were employed, enough food to feed the our billion people could be grown in the southern half of Sudan! It is only the Western bias, the idea spread throughout the world that one must eat white grain and drink soda pop to be "civilized," that is responsible for the suffering of the millions of starving people in the world. It is a myth that there is not enough to go around, that there is no way the Earth can support its exploding population. The truth is that most of the world's food resources are controlled by a handful of greedy men, who deny people the right to grow food for themselves but try to sell them Western-produced junk instead. [Some experts] estimate that if all the arable land on earth were used properly and sowed with foods for human consumption, the Earth could support 60 billion people--almost fifteen times our current population! But it is true that there is no way we can feed the world population on Whoppers and Cheez-Wiz, let along nourish it."

~ Paul Stitt Fighting the Food Giants via Nourishing Traditions

Whispers from God

"God calls us gradually, from one level to the next. He attracts us in some mysterious way. We become aware of it after it is done. But it is often very simple: our conscience is stirred, or becomes uncomfortable, with very specific points of departure which deceive us because they are too unassuming, too close at hand. We do not believe that faith is already there, that it is calling us, and that, as the Epistle to the Romans says, God 'stirs up our jealousy.' In a discrete way he proposes something better, a surpassing of ourselves, within our conscience. For Abraham--and Abraham did not know what it meant - : to have a son; for Saint Peter: to become a fisher of men. But God remains disconcerting, so discrete is he. He arouses us, stirs us up, but we are always free to prefer something else and not pay attention."

~ Fr. Bernard Bro, O.P.

Big Man on Campus

WWD has spent his mornings the past three weeks all the way downtown on campus at a program for gifted-and-talented sixth-graders-to-be. He's spent his mornings running all around the university campus, touring museums, taking classes in a variety of fields, getting snacks at the Union, and having fun with a few hundred kids from all over our part of the state. His core classes included "Architecture of the Ancient World," where they learned about ancient structures and built some models (see them in the pictures--his is Macchu Pichu, and he also built a Roman aqueduct); "Radio Drama," where they got on the air at the campus radio studio, and wrote and produced a radio play; and "The Human Body," which featured WWD's favorite day: Dissection! (A Chicken Wing...I said "Want to go to KFC for lunch?")

What a fantastic opportunity this has been! He had several friends attend, but mostly met new people, had a blast, and learned some really cool stuff. It has been a busy three weeks, and he's pretty worn out.

Next up: a week of Boy Scout camp! Go WWD!

Friday Quick Takes

Joining Jen at Conversion Diary for Quick Takes Friday. This week my Quick Takes have a bit of a twist.

I'm pretty much of a Geek Mom when it comes to kids' media. Although we almost never watch TV and don't have a gaming system, we do enjoy movies and PC games. My Seven Quick Takes post this week is a peek at some of our most favorite and recommended electronic stuff:


~ 1 ~

The Eyewitness DVDs.
These are so great; we watch them all the time in the car.




~ 2 ~
Chessmaster. Part of the reason we don't have a gaming system is that I think we can easily spend plenty of screen-time just on a PC. My 4 oldest kids will play Chessmaster all day and as far as they're concerned, it is a video game.





~ 3 ~
Rosetta Stone.

Ditto my comments for #2. We're just getting into French on this one, and MRD, in particular, loves it. This one also gets extra points in our house because you actually get to wear a headset and talk to the computer. :)






~ 4 ~

Schoolhouse Rock! Of course! These are the best. The kids like them as much as I do, and we rock out in the van to them all the time.




~ 5 ~

Zoombinis PC game.This logic game is so much fun for all ages. We have an old version which worked well on my old laptop, but now it seems to be also working on our newer computer. It looks like there are some version-compatibility issues, so buy it carefully. But do buy it--it's full of fun, mind-bending puzzles.


~ 6 ~
The I Spy games.Fun, fun, fun, especially for younger pre-readers.





~ 7 ~
I can't get enough of all the great Catholic DVDs from Ignatius Press.
We own a few of these, and our parish has an awesome library with many others. The kids love watching the lives of the Saints, and I think movies are such a powerful way to learn about history. WWD and I especially love Steve Ray's Footprints of God series. Check it out!



See what I mean? I'm quite a geek. (Shhhh--my kids haven't figured it out yet!) Got any good recommendations to share?